maya and i love to
watch the world burn
in movies.
the day after tomorrow,
28 days later, our netflix an apocalyptic amphitheater.
marveled at the audacity of human capacity,
surreal visions of fictional catastrophe.
fiction is only the worst of reality.
when the world's at scarcity,
it's a scar city, it's a scare city.
maya and i haven't fucked in a while.
we watch the world get fucked,
losing everything worthwhile.
if the world was ending tonight, would you
lay by my side,
light the last cigarette with me,
watch the world burn
in movies?
Del Rio to Marathon, 178 miles of lizard belly,
lizard belly and gulches that swallow the sun.
Halfway there is the Judge Roy Bean Museum,
where some of this state's legends of cruelty
are enshrined in a one block town.
On Highway 90 I find a quick stop
beside a motel that has sand blown in
on three doorsteps. No sign, so
I call it "House of Dismal Encounters."
The quick stop has one gas pump
which is rusted, dusty and dry, gulch dry.
When I go in the donut-eater/clerk
croaks out that a Texaco tanker
might roll in by Thursday.
Then again, could be Saturday.
She holds a finger up, saunters off.
Reemerges with a wickedly long-tailed funnel
and a two gallon gas can red as turkey wattle.
She offers me the contents for twelve dollars
which is way cheaper than three nights abed
between the Motel Dismal's scratchy sheets.
So I watch the Quick stop turn
to a sand grain in the rearview.
Tires spin on over asphalt, state-maintained
to insure ease of access for Texans' and tourists'
journeys through hell's wide landscape.
